


A Nice Motherly Person

by oh_simone



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Felix the room mom, Gen, Midnight Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 12:50:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_simone/pseuds/oh_simone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter just chooses the boys. Felix actually has to deal with their shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Nice Motherly Person

**Author's Note:**

> It amuses me greatly to think of Peter and Felix weirdly co-parenting in a very Lord of the Flies dysfunctional way. If Pan is the one buying the kids skateboards, Felix is probably the one stocking up on hydrogen peroxide and band aids.  
> Title is from Peter Pan by JM Barrie.

Felix’s eyes open to pitch black darkness; sometime while they were sleeping, the lamp has gone out, and only the steady soft snores around him confirm that he is awake and not still dreaming. He frowns slightly, trying to place what woke him up. Besides him, Pan’s bedroll is empty, but that is not unusual—Peter is probably walking the island, scheming, strategizing. No, it is something else. He’s quiet, alert, and seconds later…

Ah.

Soundlessly, he sighs and curses Peter absently for leaving him behind, reluctantly rolling to his feet. None of the Lost Boys stir as he picks his way across the room, yawning, and dropping to a crouch besides the newest Lost Boy, who is now noticeably silent. Felix rolls his eyes and scratches mindlessly at the thick scar on his face.

“Benny,” he says mildly, and the lump flinches. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk.” He heads up out of their hollowed, underground lair, ducking the hanging roots above the stairs absently. The climb out of the tree is brief but confusing, with dead ends and labyrinthine pathways that lead the boys astray some times. Felix allows himself to make noise; he’s not trying to lose the kid, after all. He doesn’t bother to check if the boy follows. Benny will; he’s too scared not to. Indeed, as Felix makes for the hidden trapdoor, he hears the clumsy footfalls behind him, stumbling in the dark. 

Felix emerges into a warm, damp night and waits at the base of the thick, knotted tree trunk that serves as their home. Above, the twisted, gnarled branches climb high through the jungle canopy.

“P-please don’t hurt me,” Benny whispers as he comes to stand before Felix. “I’m sorry, I-I’ll stop.”

“Climb up,” Felix orders, and Benny balks. “Go on.” Hesitantly, the boy grips the coils of trunk, and when Felix thinks he goes too slow, he heaves him higher up the branch before hauling himself up. Together they climb until they reach the break above the canopy, Benny by now panting and needing Felix to guide him onto a seat on a branch. The view is terrible—they are not high enough to break cloud cover, but at least there is a cool breeze above the tree tops; it sounds like a low, whistling sea as it rustles past the leaves, and Felix allows himself half a minute of respite to catch his own breath and enjoy the silence.

“First off,” Felix says out loud, not looking away from the deep black stillness of night. “No one is going to go out of their way to hurt you, as long as you stay with the Lost Boys. You’re one of us now, and we protect our own. So you can stop begging me not to push you off the tree. I won’t, but some of the other boys get tired of that whining real quick, and they might just do it to shut you up.”

Benny goes silent besides him.

“Next, you’re here because Peter sees something in you that’s different from other boys. Something that he believes makes you special.” Felix glances at the kid, who’s staring at him in confusion now, and not for the first time, he wishes Peter would stop bringing home the young ones, or at least stop making Felix deal with them when he does. That jerk probably knew this one would break tonight and absented himself on purpose.

“I’m not special,” Benny says sullenly, scrubbing the wet traces off his face with a grubby fist.

“How old are you?” Felix asks, and frowns when he hears the ‘nine’. This one is young, even for Pan. Most of the boys here were on the older side—Peter had learned, long before, that the young ones were more trouble than they were worth. As rough as the older boys were, at least they didn’t need to be constantly watched. “Where’re you from?”

“Spanish Hill Plantation,” Benny recites. “In Georgetown.”

Felix frowns harder. That would explain the scarring on the back of the boy’s calves. “Do you want to go back?” he asks skeptically.

Benny shakes his head, a tiny nervous motion.

“Alright then.” Felix leaned back against the trunk of the tree and closed his eyes, lacing his hands across his stomach. “The way I see it is this. None of us here, not one, has anything good to return to. Mayer’s da was in the bottle six days a week, Cheong was picking at garbage for dinner when Pan picked him up. Bullsie and Goose saw their nanny more than their parents. It’s easy for grown-ups to see us as trash, unwelcome burdens. Unworthy of love. But we aren’t. And neither are you.” He slits open one eye. “You deserve family. Brothers who won’t throw you away. Who will take care of you. You understand?”

Wide-eyed, Benny nods slowly.

“You’re a Lost Boy, now. That’s something to be proud of; it names you as one of us. And because you’re one of us, you aren’t ‘Benny’ anymore either. Benny was unloved and miserable, but you aren’t. From now on, you choose who you are. A new name, new clothes—all just waiting for you to take it.”

“W-what name?”

Shrugging, Felix settles back. “Anything you want. Your favorite word. An animal. Make something up. It’s your decision, I can’t make it for you.”

“Can I think about it?” Benny asks tentatively.

“Sure, kid. Take a day or two.”

Silence falls between them, thoughtful and deep. Felix rustles in his pockets on an afterthought, and sure enough, he grasps the object inside that hadn’t been there when he’d gone to bed.

“Hey, stick out your hand.”

When he does so, Felix drops a crude dagger into his palm. It’s a stone blade, a little more than half a foot in length, and it has twine wrapped around one end for a handle. Each Lost Boy receives a dagger from Pan in his first few days on the island. Or rather, Pan makes Felix pass it on to them.

“It’s yours now.” The boy doesn’t say anything, but if the reverent way his hands close over the handle is any indication, there won’t be much more crying himself to sleep in the future. Good, because Felix is just about tired enough to fall off his perch.

 

By the time they return to the underbelly of the tree, Peter is back, a dark shadowed lump in his bedroll. The boy, formerly Benny, nearly faceplants into his own bedding, and Felix makes his way towards his pallet, tossing his cloak over himself as he lies down. The lump next to him shuffles a bit, and then Peter’s bright, cold eyes blink awake at him.

“Everything okay?” He sounds amused though, and Felix resists the urge to kick him out of irritation.

“If you had a better recruitment speech, I wouldn’t need to handle this in the dead of night,” he gripes, but the asshole just laughs softly.

“Dear Felix,” he says fondly, with just a hint of laughter. “Where would I be but tragically lost without you.”

Felix huffs, closing his eyes. “Please stop. You don’t need to pander to me.”

Before his next breath, he’s jerked hard off his pallet and spun around, a hard forearm across his chest. He slams onto his back, the air knocked out of him and the heavy, lean weight of Pan on top. The deadly curve of a blade just kisses the line of his neck.

Above him, Pan tuts chidingly. “Felix, I was trying to express my appreciation. Learn to take a compliment, why don’t you?” he says, mock reprovingly.

Felix snarls silently at him, teeth bared but motionless. “I thought the whole point of being here was so I didn’t have to do what I was told,” he bites out icily.

After a tense moment, Pan chuckles, and the sharp line lifts off of Felix’s neck; a thin weal of blood springs up from it as Felix takes a deep breath. Pan pats Felix’s cheek fondly and rolls off of him. “Back to your bed,” he orders cheerfully, and Felix goes silently, settling onto his pallet for, hopefully, the last time that night.

“I’d better be left alone for at least another four hours,” he grumbles over his shoulder, and Pan only laughs softly.

“You’re a good boy, Felix,” Peter tells him with amusement. “Sleep well.”

**Author's Note:**

> It seems like the show has the boys kinda camping out around firepits and etc., but the original sources have them living under a tree.
> 
> Is anyone else as obsessed with contemplating daily life of the Lost Boys as I am?
> 
> Comments are always welcome!


End file.
